The Clintons and the 'War on Obama'

Last December, when I first learned via Clinton insiders that their “oppo” package would include Barack Obama’s associations with fiery black preacher Jeremiah Wright and Vietnam War-era radical William Ayers, I shrugged at what sounded to me like sub-standard fare from the dark side of American politics. So what if someone’s minister said some stupid things or that an aging one-time student radical had lent some support to a politician’s campaign, I thought. Besides those two themes, Clinton insiders were plotting how to exploit Obama’s past political ties to indicted real-estate developer Tony Rezko, and they even were hashing over how they might slip in suggestions that Obama’s dead mother had been a leftist. (When I heard the “oppo” about the dead mother, I really couldn’t believe my ears.)

Even then – in December before the first votes had been cast – the Clintons were so caught up in their ambition to return to the White House that they were veering toward the worst aspects of politics, what is generally associated with the American Right and the most ruthless Republican operatives – guilt-by-association, red-baiting, McCarthyism and racial messaging. The rationale that I heard from the Clinton operatives was that these Obama vulnerabilities would be exploited by the Republicans in the general election, so it was necessary to destroy Obama when there was still time for another Democrat (i.e. Hillary Clinton) to be nominated.

But part of me didn’t believe the Clintons would go through with this War on Obama. I had trouble envisioning people who had been victimized by similar tactics – indeed whom I had defended when they were on the receiving end – resorting to such acts against a fellow Democrat, who by all accounts is a decent fellow and a good family man. It is now clear, however, that the Clintons did decide to go through with it, “throwing the kitchen sink” at Obama, as one Clinton aide explained to the New York Times.

Plus, in doing so, the Clinton camp struck an enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend alliance with some of the same pro-Republican media outlets that Sen. Clinton had dubbed in the 1990s the “vast right-wing conspiracy.” This alliance of convenience made Hillary Clinton an odd bedfellow with right-wing media mogul Richard Mellon Scaife, Fox News and even Rush Limbaugh, who has been urging Republicans to vote for Sen. Clinton in the Democratic primaries as a way to block Sen. Obama’s nomination. And, with the right-wing media onboard, the mainstream news commentators could be counted on to tag along – which many did.

But the Clintons also got special help from one of their old advisers, George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, who reprised many of the anti-Obama “oppo” themes during a key prime-time debate before the Pennsylvania primary.

entire article @ link: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/050308.html

When the lust for power gets in the way of doing what is right. The Clintons kind of politics during this race have been disgusting to say the least. I for one do not want another person in the whitehouse like this, we already have had one, and he has done more damage to this country than most of us will ever know.

Thank you for posting this article and link. They must always have been disgusting and somehow I missed it. Glad I'm not drinking their koolaid anymore.

Good gawd. :puke: Wait a minute.... I guess they still might.

What's interesting to me is that I don't believe the Clintons ever thought Obama was going to give them such a hard time. I think they thought Obama would be finished pretty early, and that the only one standing between them and their return to the White House was John Edwards.

I wonder what their oppo package against John Edwards looked like?

including Bill Richardson. It would be very revealing to see all the oppo packages, wouldn't it? That'd pretty much kill any idea that these folks were supposed to be loyal to Hillary.

Going after Obama's dead mother is downright evil. And I'm not surprised about it at all after hearing that New York preacher call her a whore on YouTube. He's a Hillary supporter in the City. Can't remember his name but he did an entire sermon trashing Obama and Obama's mother. I couldn't believe he would do that from the pulpit - call a dead woman he never met a whore.

at about that same time, isn't it ?

The woman is downright confusing. Goldwater Girl, Radical Leftist, and of course, her current incarnation, Neocon Hack.

left the GOP -- according to her official hagiography -- after the 1868 GOP convention because she didn't like the way Nixon smeared Rockefeller and because of the (get this) veiled racism of the Nixon campaign.

Now there is irony for you.

:thumbsdown:

Clinton campaign leaders SAID OPENLY they would use Wright as an issue

It is shameful.

that Bush Gang use to push their message.

Scorched Earth politics to destroy the opposition by any means.

Is this what we want for the next 4 years?

but the sheeple are beginning to wake up from the mass media delivered hypnotic trance.

All they have left is outright theft.

:kick:

you should vote for Clinton

I accidentally clicked on this thread. If I'd have known it was about ROBERT PARRY's article, I'd have clicked here FIRST. Please put his name somewhere on your thread. I only recognized the probable author when I glanced at the link: CONSORTIUM NEWS.

EVERYBODY should be a patron of Consortium News anyway. There are only about 4 actual living journalists in the U.S. today -- Parry is one of them.